Situation Is Critical! Bringing African Writing Back Home

A análise de Jeremy Weat do estado da literatura africana - autores, edição e distribuição - no contexto actual, comparando-a com os imensos recursos naturais que são exportados do continente para o resto do mundo, sem garantir as necessidades internas.

"What is to be done? How does one ensure one’s dutifully collected shelf of African books is not ever more replete with child soldiers, AK47s and rapists? There are, I think, two parts to the answer: First, African writers should realise that there is a price to pay for a suburban existence in a sedated part of the world. Situation is critical. To engage with the world in writing, it is seldom enough to read of a world from afar. Even the most meticulous research will miss out on the subterranean processes that are continuously at work in a society; the gaps and tensions in speech and behaviour that point to unmet desires and a world in transition. It is the work of the writer to bring these silences to voice; it is an almost impossible task when the only source of information is internet news sites, visitors from home and the occasional trip back to the motherland.

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Most of all, we need to realise that we have currently lost control of the African story generation. We can hardly remain friends with those who try to take the stories away. We publishers should realise that there is semiotic warfare at work and that she who owns the story, owns the story."

Todo o texto de Jeremy Weate pode ser lido aqui